Silence of the Lamps

by Karen Rose Smith

  Caprice flitted from table to table at first, then honed in on Drew’s table. He had three assistants working with him, and it was very easy to just slip a plate with the groom’s cake from the table and carry it along with her. When she reached Nikki’s stand again, Nikki stepped away from the servers, letting her assistants take over. Then she and Caprice and Juan put their heads together in a quiet corner as they each took a bite of the chocolate walnut groom’s cake.

  “I hate to say it,” Juan said, watching Nikki carefully, “but he’s nailed this. Every groom in town will probably want it.”

  Caprice threw her assistant a warning look.

  “Sorry,” Juan mumbled.

  Nikki sighed. “You’re right. It’s delicious. But I just can’t believe he came up with it himself. If it’s his grandmother’s recipe, does she know he used it?”

  There were lots of possibilities, Caprice supposed, giving Drew the benefit of the doubt. He might have heard about his grandmother’s cake and decided to try to replicate it. But if he wasn’t good at creating recipes, that would be darn hard to do. Maybe Drew’s grandmother had just handed over the recipe. After all, giving it to her grandson was much different than giving it to an acquaintance, right?

  Nikki’s table was becoming deluged with customers wanting to sample her food, as well as examine the menus. This was her sister’s chance to grow her business, to spread the word about her services, to let new customers realize how good a cook she was.

  Suddenly Bella appeared at the table and checked out the line of people taste-testing Nikki’s food. “She’s doing great.”

  “What are you doing here?” Caprice asked.

  “Joe took the kids to the park so I could stop in. I knew Nikki needed some support. But she looks like she’s doing fine.”

  “For now,” Caprice said, with some doubt in her voice. “Did you stop at Drew Pierson’s table?”

  Bella lowered her voice. “I didn’t want to tell Nikki, but his food is good. I wasn’t going to mention it.”

  “She already knows. He stole her recipe for the horseradish-glazed beef. She’s wondering whose recipe he stole for the cake.”

  Seeing that Nikki was too busy for conversation, Bella nodded to the runway show across the room. “Let’s take a walk over to those bridal dresses.”

  Bella had an opinion about everything, and never hesitated to express it. Passing a table filled with decorations for wedding centerpieces, she said, “They look cheap. I’d never put them on my table at a reception.”

  Caprice smiled. No, Bella would want quality all the way, even if she had to cut corners somewhere else to pay for it.

  A dais and stairs had been set up near the bridal dress vendors. Now a crowd was gathering around that area, and Caprice suspected why. Models would be showing off some of those wedding dresses.

  Bella grabbed Caprice’s arm and pulled her along, snaking around women until they both had a good vantage point about five feet from those stairs.

  “We don’t need to be so close,” Caprice murmured.

  “Yes, we do. You’re interested, aren’t you? I mean, you and Grant are dating, and he’s what you want, isn’t he? You sent Seth packing so Grant could be your exclusive.”

  Her exclusive. Just what did that mean?

  “But we’re not . . .” Caprice waved her hand at the model climbing the steps who stopped on the high dais and smiled at everyone around. “We’re not this serious.”

  Bella faced Caprice squarely, staring straight into her eyes. “When you close your eyes at night, do you see Grant’s face? When you wake up in the morning, do you think of him? Aren’t you weaving dreams about kids and dogs and a minivan?”

  Caprice was always straight with her sisters. “Just because I’m thinking of Grant that way doesn’t mean he’s thinking of me that way. And I already have a van.”

  “You’re in denial,” Bella warned her. “If you don’t accept what you’re feeling, Grant won’t either. You have trust issues, Caprice. I know that. You’ve been hurt before. But you have to forget about Craig going to California to college and sending you a Dear Caprice e-mail. You have to move on, past Travis going back to his ex-wife. You’re the one with that antique silent butler full of affirmations. You’ve got to look ahead, not back, and embrace it. That’s what Father Gregory told me and Joe—embrace our future. That’s what you need to do too.”

  That was sage advice coming from Bella. Apparently she and Joe had been listening carefully to Father Gregory when they’d had counseling sessions with him, and they’d taken everything he had said to heart.

  She hesitated a moment and leaned close to Bella. “Grant has a past too.”

  “I know that,” Bella commiserated. “And losing a child isn’t something he’s going to ever forget. That tragedy ruined his life for a while. But now you can help him really make a fresh start, can’t you?”

  Caprice had been telling herself that Grant had to be ready. Maybe she was the one who had to embrace the future first.

  She studied the model at the top of the stairs. Her dress was a strapless concoction of tulle, froth, and glass beads that made the whole gown shimmer. It was beautiful. Still—“That’s not me,” Caprice said with certainty.

  Bella cut her a sideways glance. “It’s gorgeous.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t want Cinderella. I want retro-elegance.”

  Bella rolled her eyes, something she did quite often. “Are you going to search for a vintage wedding gown?”

  “When the time comes, I might.”

  “The time is now, dear sister, especially if you’re going to hunt down one of those.”

  It could be fun checking online websites for vintage wedding gowns. Not that she had a lot of spare time to do it. Nevertheless . . . Searching for a vintage wedding gown might help embrace the future.

  Wasn’t she ready to dream again?

  * * *

  Carrying bags from her stop at Grocery Fresh after she’d left the expo, Caprice let herself into her house and was immediately struck by the silence. Quite a difference from the music and constant background hum of voices at the expo or the Sunday shoppers at the grocery store. Silence could be good or it could be bad. Where were Uncle Dom and the fur babies?

  Hanging her purse on the antique oak mirrored stand in her foyer, she looked for signs of the cats and Lady in the living room and the dining room. Had something gone terribly wrong and Dom had to cage everyone and take them to the vet?

  In the kitchen, she set her bags on the counter and spied Mirabelle and Sophia in one of their rare moments of close proximity. Mirabelle sat on the counter at one corner of the window over the sink while Sophia sat at the other. They were both staring outside.

  Caprice suspected they were watching more than a stray ladybug. They didn’t seem mindful of her at all as she came up behind them. She touched them both at the same time, not wanting to play favorites. Mirabelle meowed loudly and then directed her focus back out the window. Sophia butted her head against Caprice’s hand but didn’t move away from whatever was out there.

  “I guess I’d better look too,” Caprice capitulated. She laughed when she saw Uncle Dom rolling around on the ground with Lady. They seemed to be tussling over a toy that Lady used to play fetch.

  “I’ll be back in,” she told her two felines. “As soon as I round up Uncle Dom and Lady.”

  She opened the back door and the screen and stepped out onto the porch. One side led into her garage. Another side was decorated with wrought-iron railing. The third side led down two steps into her backyard. She hopped down the steps and went to stand by her uncle.

  He looked up, his face wreathed in a grin. “Lady’s giving me a workout.”

  “Or you’re giving her one.”

  Uncle Dom got to his feet and tossed the toy about ten feet away. Lady scampered to it, picked it up in her mouth, and shook it back and forth several times.

  Dom waved his hand at her. “You can play with it. Bring
it in when you’re ready.”

  He walked to the porch with Caprice. Instead of going up the steps and sitting on the fifties-style, robin-egg-blue glider, he sank down onto one of the steps. “I think I’m going to like this.”

  “This, meaning pet sitting? You’ve made a decision?”

  “I have. One of your mom’s friends, another teacher, hired me to pet-sit her Lab and two cats for a week starting tonight. I’m going to house-sit too. That way I’ll be out of your parents’ hair. I know living there is a real imposition. My background check is being completed to become bonded, and I’m making inquiries into the insurance. If this pet-sitting experience goes well and she gives me recommendations, I’ll be able to move into my own place. We’re heading into vacation time, so more work will be coming. I’ve been doing bookwork on the side for a couple of small businesses, and I’ve stowed that money away. I’m sure your mom and dad will be happy about it.”

  “But they’ll miss you too. I know they will. You’re going to stay in Kismet?”

  “Yes, I think I’d like to. When I was a kid, I used to complain like everyone else that there was nothing to do here. But now that I’m an adult, I can see the possibilities. There are plays at Hershey Theater, at the Fulton in Lancaster too. Baltimore and D.C. aren’t that far away for concerts.”

  “Don’t forget the Giant Center in Hershey. Ace Richland’s going to play there soon.” Caprice had staged a house that Ace, a rock star legend, had purchased. Since then, they’d become friends.

  Like a whirlwind, Lady came bounding over to Uncle Dom, dropping the toy at his feet. Then she turned to Caprice, circling her legs, pushing against her, wagging her tail.

  “She certainly seems happy enough. And I can’t believe the cats are sitting together at the window.”

  “I brought a secret along. A woman at the farmers market in York makes catnip pouches. I brought one for each of them. They played with them for about a half hour, and they weren’t that far apart then. So maybe catnip promotes peace.”

  Caprice laughed out loud at that thought. She was about to ask her Uncle Dom if he’d like a glass of iced tea when the phone in her pocket played “Let It Be.” She was surprised to see the caller was Nikki.

  Uncle Dom said, “Go ahead and take it. I made a pot of coffee. I’ll have another cup.”

  Caprice answered her phone. “Hey, Nik. Did something happen while you were wrapping up?”

  “No, I just had more time to think. The hairs on the back of my neck are tingling, and I think my blood pressure’s up. I want to confront Drew.”

  “About the white horseradish beef?”

  “About everything. He’s not going to get away with this, Caprice. Using my recipe, stealing my clients. He needs to know I won’t put up with it.”

  “When are you going to do it?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. I want to be reasonable and civil. Will you go with me?”

  “When?”

  “Now. I want to get this over with. Can you meet me at Drew’s grandmother’s house?”

  “How do you know he’s there?”

  “When I was closing down my stand and carrying things to my van, I overheard him say he was meeting someone.”

  “And you want to just barge right in?”

  “Yes, I do. I want to take him by surprise. I want to catch him off guard.”

  “I need some time to thank Uncle Dom properly, put groceries away, and make sure Lady and Mirabelle and Sophia are happy to curl up for the evening. If I feed them before I leave, they should be ready to do that.”

  “Maybe Uncle Dom can stay.”

  “He’s starting to pet-sit tonight for a friend of Mom’s. I think he’s really going to like the pet-sitting profession.”

  “So how long do you need?” Nikki asked.

  “An hour and a half should do it. I’ll meet you at Rowena Pierson’s house at seven-thirty.”

  Caprice disconnected and went inside. There she thanked her uncle. When he wouldn’t accept payment for his stay with her pets, she insisted he take along slices of the chocolate-coffee loaf that she’d baked that morning.

  After he left, she stowed away her groceries, played with Lady for a while, and made sure the cats got affection too. Then she went to change clothes. If she was going to help Nikki confront Drew, she wanted to be comfortable doing it. She changed into shorts and a tie-dyed T-shirt. Her platform sandals were retro all the way. After she fed her furry crew and cleaned up a bit, her watch said seven-fifteen. Time to hit the road.

  She left Lady with a ball that dispensed kibble for treats, picked up her fringed purse, and headed for her yellow Camaro. The car had been in an accident recently, but thanks to Don Rodriguez’s body shop, it was as good as new. It varoomed nicely as she started it up, backed out of her driveway, and headed for an older section of town.

  On her way, she drove through downtown Kismet with its sand-blasted brick buildings with white window frames and black shutters, heading for a neighborhood on the south side of town. She drove up the tree-lined street, knowing she liked the older neighborhoods better with their maples and elms, poplars and birches, myrtle and ivy. She spotted Nikki’s blue car parked in front of a two-story brick home set back from the street about twenty feet. She pulled up behind Nikki’s car and exited her Camero, meeting her sister at the curb.

  “There’s Drew’s van,” she said, nodding to the driveway. It was large and white with Drew’s Portable Edibles logo painted on the side.

  “Do you know why Drew lives with his grandmother?” she asked Nikki.

  “When we were on talking terms, he told me he moved in with her because she was having more trouble getting around and seeing properly.”

  “That was nice of him.”

  “If that was the real reason he wanted to live here,” Nikki added. “From what he said, I think he spent some of his childhood here.”

  As they walked up the cement block path, Caprice said, “So you two really got to know each other.”

  Nikki hesitated. “Some, before I realized—”

  Caprice stopped her sister by grabbing her arm. “Did he only make a pass?”

  Nikki hesitated, then sighed. “Let’s just say it was a very strong pass, and I had to knee him where it hurt to get him to back off.”

  “Nikki! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I took care of it. At least I thought I did. But I think this rivalry between us is all about that.”

  They walked up the rest of the path in silence and mounted the three porch steps sandwiched between mature arborvitae. On the porch, they stared at each other. The screen door was a wooden one. The door inside was open.

  They both stepped up to the door rang. It was shadowy inside.

  Nikki called, “Drew? Mrs. Pierson?”

  There wasn’t an answer.

  “Is his grandmother hard of hearing?” Caprice inquired.

  “I don’t know.”

  “The door is open. Just step over the threshold and call inside.”

  Since Nikki wanted to get this over with as much as Caprice, she opened the screen door and did what Caprice suggested. But a moment later, she gasped, let out a yelp, and backed out quickly.

  “What?”

  “Drew’s on the floor. There’s blood all around his head.”

  Caprice didn’t hesitate. She stepped inside and saw for herself what Nikki had seen.

  “Call nine-one-one,” she told Nikki. “I’ll see if he has a pulse.”

  But from the blood pooling on the floor around his head and the flat look in his wide-open eyes, Caprice was fairly sure that Drew Pierson was dead.

  Chapter Four

  Caprice wrapped her arm around Nikki and felt her sister tremble. A patrol car had arrived, and so had the paramedics.

  “What happened in there?” Nikki asked Caprice, not for the first time.

  “I don’t know, Nik,” Caprice answered honestly. She tried to remember the details she’d absorbed by stan
ding in the room for a few minutes.

  A Tiffany-style lampshade sat on a side table with the base nowhere in sight. A tall Tiffany-style floor lamp had obviously been knocked over and lay on the carpet near the sofa. Miraculously it hadn’t broken. Whether they were true Tiffany lamps only an expert could determine. But if they were . . . Caprice remembered some auction figures on Tiffany lamps from her design courses. Besides the possible worth of the lamps, she had noticed another thing. There had been a slip of paper sticking out from the base of the floor lamp. She knew better than to handle anything that could be considered evidence, or else she would have examined it. As it was, that piece of paper was part of the crime scene and she knew she shouldn’t touch it.

  There had been one other important detail. The outside back door in the kitchen had stood open. She wished she could record all of this on her electronic tablet, but she’d left that at home. If she concentrated on those details, maybe she could forget about seeing Drew’s body. Maybe she could forget about the blood.

  Yet she knew that might be impossible, because she’d witnessed crime scenes before.

  “When I called Vince, he said he’d be here right away,” Nikki murmured.

  Caprice patted her back. “That was only a few minutes ago. Grant said the same thing.” Caprice knew what was going to happen next, and they both would want a lawyer by their sides.

  Ten minutes later, she was proven right. Detectives Carstead and Jones drove up in the same sedan, an unmarked vehicle.

  “The patrol officer should have separated you,” Jones snapped as he passed them and nodded to one of the officers to do just that.

  Caprice watched Carstead and Jones as they pulled on booties, filled in the police log, and went inside. Five minutes later, they were back out.

  Caprice was at the curb with a patrol officer at one end of the property, and Nikki was with another officer at the other end . . . outside the crime scene tape.

  Detective Carstead approached Caprice, and Jones went toward Nikki. Caprice wished it was the other way around. Nikki was shaky, and Caprice didn’t want her to say something to the hard-core detective that could be misinterpreted.